


You Can Get Used to Almost Anything

by onenerdylady



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Blood, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 15:36:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14288052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onenerdylady/pseuds/onenerdylady
Summary: Ronan Lynch did not want to sleep.  He knew his bad memories turned dreams into nightmares, but it was so much worse when he brought them into his waking life.





	You Can Get Used to Almost Anything

Ronan Lynch did not want to sleep. These days, he never wanted to sleep. Instead, he roamed the streets in his BMW looking for trouble to keep him awake, but his eyes were too heavy and Kavinsky was not to be found. When he nearly drove off the road as his head fell forward in sleep again, Ronan decided to return to Monmouth. He arrived just before the tinge of dawn began to lighten the horizon, while twilight still hung heavy in the air.

Ronan did not like to show emotion, but he could not keep the dread from his face as he strode past a lightly sleeping Gansey. Gansey had an arm thrown over his eyes and a muscle that twitched in his jaw.

With one last glance at his fellow insomniac and a deep breath, Ronan entered his room, closing the door covered in speeding tickets between himself and his sleeping friend. He moved slowly and quietly as he pulled a blue tarp from his closet, one of many, and unfolded it over a rust colored stain on the carpet. He shuddered, but climbed slowly into bed, clothes still on. He reached for a bottle of cheap whiskey on the nightstand taking several long swigs. 

Could he really fall asleep when it was the last thing he wanted? His eyes and his body fought him and he finally gave over to the exhaustion. Sometimes sleep is an inevitability. Sometimes dreaming is an inevitability.

When Ronan finally awoke, the sun was full and bright in the sky. His head ached and his thoughts were fuzzy from sleep and from drinking. He laid still on his back staring at the ceiling as he waited for his head to clear. He'd slept through most of school again, but at least the apartment would be empty. 

Ronan was procrastinating, he was afraid to turn his head to see what his dreams had wrought. He already knew what he would find.

With a swallow that moved his Adam's apple, he looked towards the tarp to see a body. It was bloody and mangled. Dead. His father, looking the same as when he'd found him murdered at the Barns. His shaking hand scrabbled for the whiskey, but he couldn't look away from his father's wide open eyes. 

Ronan did not cry. He just felt the heavy weight of despair and acceptance as he rolled the tarp up over his father's face and began to drag the body, his father's body, out to the BMW. He was breathing heavily with the effort of pulling the dead weight of the full grown man across the floor, down the stairs and then across the parking lot to the steel grey car. He struggled and fumbled as he hefted the tarp into the car. After a few moments, it lay in the back seat next to a dirt-covered shovel. Ronan leaned his forehead on his arm over the car, winded.

A ghostly figure stood watching the car drive away from the window, his hand on the glass and pity on his face.

Ronan drove to the wooded countryside, to an abandoned slat of forest. He couldn't go back to the Barns, though that's where he really felt he should be. He left the well-driven road to follow a familiar path he'd created himself, not caring if the branches scratched his paint. When he could drive no further, his feet traveled the path that lead into the darker cover of the woods, dragging the tarp and shovel behind him.

Ronan stopped when he reached a distance he felt was safe from prying eyes. He took the shovel and began to dig. Sweat dripped from his nose and ran down his biceps. His black sleeveless shirt was stuck to his body. The only sounds were the metal stabbing through the dirt and Ronan's gasping, huffing breath. The scent of dirt hung familiar to him in the air. At the Barns, it had been comforting. Here it was the scent of resignation.

It was not easy to dig a grave. 

After some time, he looked down into the hole of broken earth. It was six feet long, the width of a man, and deep enough to keep the animals away. With one last labored sigh, he hefted his father into the grave, burying him again. He threw shovelfuls of dark soil over the bright blue tarp. He still did not cry. 

When the last of the dirt covered his father, Ronan looked up from his work and into the distance of the woods. A long line of scarred earth patches stretch out of his sight, breaking up the green of the forest. A scratch of dirt for each day he'd been here before. Ronan Lynch walked back to his car, the blade of the shovel trailing on the ground. 

He wondered how many more times he would have to bury his father.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a small slightly angsty story. First fanfic in years and first AO3 post, so open to constructive criticism!


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